My Body Can't Keep Up with My Ambition

It's really difficult to put into words the frustration I feel day in and day out of all the projects I want to do or places I want to go but I'm too tired and in pain from dealing with fibromyalgia, chronic sinusitis, and IBS.  I have days where I truly feel unhappy and I know it's because of how I feel.  There isn't one day that goes by where my body isn't screaming at me about something that hurts.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't feel tired mentally and physically.  This is the life sentence I was given.


I am lucky knowing that the disorders I have won't kill me or are degenerative.  I am purely writing this out of annoyance.  I have a Type A brain with a Type B body.  I would love to uphoster furniture, or be good at running, or try really complicated recipes, or play hide and seek for 3 hours straight with my daughter...but this is not the reality I live in.  It's an accomplishment to just get through the work day with lots of caffeine.  By the time I get home to have family time, it's hard for me to think clearly or really do anything without a tremendous amount of pain either in my muscles, sinuses, or both.  If I make dinner, it's something easy.  My husband does a lot of housework and for that, I feel very guilty.  By the time I put my daughter to bed, I want to lie down in bed.  I get all my work stuff out the night before because I know I will be so tired in the morning.


I want to be the girl on the go, even if for just a week.  I can't help but look at people on social media at all these fun events and doing so many hobbies (while I'm curled up on my couch checking social media because I'm in so much pain and exhaustion) and be jealous!  I have to reminder myself that people only post what they want you to see (which is also true about what I post).  I don't know what struggles other people have.  Social media shows the rosy colored version of life (at least most of the time).


Maybe one day there will be a cure for fibromyalgia.  Maybe one day I can have sinus surgery again and it will actually help.  Maybe I will be able to stop worrying about if my IBS is acting up.  Those are the things that get my through my worst days when I want to scream, "I GIVE UP!  I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS!"  But I don't give up, and I do what I can.  In fact, there is a quote from an Emily Dickinson poem  that I always come back to when the pain seems like too much:


"Hope is the thing with feathers-
That perches on the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops at all."

Rape.

I felt the need to write this post because the man recently in the news who received minimal punishment for the horrendous crime he committed in raping an unconscious woman is infuriating.

I know some men are dumpster fires that believe non consensual sex is still sex (somehow the woman was asking for it) and I really wish they understood or cared that raped women hide deep emotional issues very long after the incident.

I have never admitted this publicly but for the sake of hopefully having more men and women talk about this...I am a rape victim.  It's so weird to type that, and extremely freeing at the same time.

When I was in my senior year of college, I went to a bar.  I hung out with friends and met a guy (aka the rapist) that I knew through friends.  He was cute and I enjoyed talking to him.  I decided it was late and I wanted to go home.  He asked for a ride.  I agreed and talked about how tired I was.  He said we should just go to my apartment.  I agreed but told him he could only sleep in my bed if we just slept and he kept his clothes on.  When we got in my bed, he tried to make out with me and said I needed to go to sleep.  I fell asleep.  I woke up with my pj pants off and my hands held back even though I fought it.  He was naked but seemed to ignore me as I yelled and cried "NO!!!!"  He proceeded to rape me.  I cried and yelled no while my hands were bound the whole time.  When he was done, I was crying and he told me I liked it and was asking for it.  I screamed for him to get out.  I developed dark bruises inside my thighs in the next couple days.

What did I do?  I cried.  I didn't call the cops, or tell anyone.  All I kept hearing was, "I asked for it" over and over in my head.  I made myself believe that because I still couldn't wrap my head around what happened and how a seemingly normal guy could do that.  I also felt embarrassed, like I was dumb or drank too much to allow it to happen.  Instead of going to the cops, I quietly got tested for all STDs not mentioning what happened and went to my doctor for an antidepressant.  It took over a month to even tell my best friend who just hugged me while I cried.  She didn't condone me for not reporting it, she knew how bad I felt already.

In fact, guys I dated afterwards I never told.  It took me years to even tell my family.  I got panic attacks going into bars and seeing men look at me.  I eventually saw a therapist to help me sort out the lingering distrust I had towards men because of it.  I was always the DD too because I was terrified of being drunk and not have complete control over my awareness and my mace.

Millions of women have been raped and in much worse situations than me that never report it.  We feel responsible and this is NOT OK.  When we do report a rape, we should not be shamed by our attacker who gets a minimal sentence.  A pot grower should not be in prison longer than a rapist.  Period.

I felt I needed to share my story because you might have a sister, friend, or daughter and you need to let them know rape is NOT the woman's fault.  I wish no woman would ever have to go through what I went through.  It scars us for years and makes us feel a hatred for ourselves.

No means no.  Unconscious means NO.  A woman crying and begging for a man to stop means no.  This should not be happening in our society but it does.

I am very sad for the woman in this case.  I feel for her on a level I wish I never had to.  That is all I have left to say.

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

Introduction...

So there has been a viral video with a girl ranting about Millennials aka Generation Y aka the generation I guess I am placed in.  I couldn't help but feel bad for her because I do not know who she hangs out with to feel like our generation is so rude, entitled, and lazy.  Of course, EVERY generation has people with those qualities...but this negative video is wrong about us.  Let me shed some light on my generation (at least what I see) and the positive qualities we do possess.

We Don't Work Harder, We Work Smarter

We are the generation that grew up during a major technology boom and learned to use technology to be more efficient in our work.  I am able to write a work email within 2 minutes from my phone while doing other things.  I can text a coworker some information they need while talking to another coworker.  I have lists upon lists written in my phone with reminder alarms.  Also, GPS is a necessity for my job.  We have embraced technology.  This does not make us lazy, it makes us advanced.  Secondly, we have been through and seen that grunt work or 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' is a lie.  We have worked hard at pretty mindless jobs (I cleaned dog kennels in high school) but just because I worked hard didn't mean I got a raise or would have future employers be impressed I picked up dog poop.  That is why I got a college degree, education (or at least educating yourself) is important, learning how to think is important because we have learned that you get ahead by working smarter, not harder.  Also, most of us graduated college as the recession hit and the generation before us were scrambling to get the entry level jobs since they had been laid off.  We had to adapt and think outside the box in order to survive,  For me, it was having my own freelance floral design business.  My husband has done stage management on the side.   I know many people who work a job on the side for the income they need.  We didn't all get a chance to follow the status quo of landing that entry level position out of college so we did what we had to.  There are so many entrepreneurs in our generation who are excelling in the business world.  I don't see us as lazy, we just think outside the box when it comes to making a decent living.

We Aren't All Old Fashioned, And That's Ok

So what if our friends have kids and are not married?  Who cares if we want to put off marriage because the divorce rate is about 50%?  Yes, quite a few of us have tattoos, even piercings!   We aren't rebelling against our elders (who we DO respect, if they give us the same respect in return), we just don't see why we HAVE to do something because that is what our grandparents or parents did or did not do.  Our gay friends should be able to marry, our transgender friends should be able to go to the bathroom without fear, we should be able to date any race, class, or gender without the judging eyes of other generations.  Please tell me how these things I've mentioned are hurtful to our society other than it being not 'old fashioned'?  If you are old fashioned, that is great!  However, discrimination is not cool.  Let us be us, and you can be you.  Diversity is a GOOD thing!

We Aren't All Religious, And That's Ok Too!

Some of us have had bad experiences with religion, some of us find hypocrisies within religion, and some of us just are not interested.  That doesn't mean we are BAD people.  Most Atheists I know are the kindest, most moral people I have ever met.  They do the right thing because they love humanity, not for fear of God's wrath or being burned in hell.  In fact, there are Atheists all around us (not just in our generation).  No, they will not kidnap your child.  No, they won't kill puppies for fun.  No, they will not steal your wallet.  Just because someone is not religious does not make them a bad person.  Again, this is not to go against elders, we just know what works best in how we view life or what happens after.  Some of us are very religious, and some of us aren't.  We can live in peace together if we don't push our beliefs on each other and cast judgement based on religious or non religious affiliations.   

We Are Entitled...To Stand Up For What's Right

This is my final point because I HATE when my generation is called entitled with no explanation.  Entitled to what?  If you are talking about free healthcare, sure, we are entitled to that (like every other industrialized country).  We are entitled to marry the gender we want to marry, because, how is LOVE a bad thing?!  But no, we don't feel entitled to a fancy job, a European vacation, or a McMansion just because we went to college or worked a job for more than a year; we faced the great recession as young adults...remember?  The generation I know that I am part of is less about material things and more about human connection and experiences.  We aren't using massive amounts of credit cards to 'Keep Up with the Jones's'.  We are spending our time connecting with other humans instead of outdoing them.  Yes, there are Millennial brats, but there are also Baby Boomer brats, and 4 year old brats.  Just because you know a brat doesn't mean you should just sum up our generation as entitled brats.   

Conclusion

I feel like anyone ranting about our generation is not doing anything to fix our generation.  We should be focusing on the positive things that each generation has contributed to in our country.  United we stand and divided we fall.  'Millennial' should not be a bad word, it should just be a word.  When you feel down about society, go volunteer to make it better!  Don't use Facebook (created by a man in my generation) to complain about our generation being lazy, rude, and entitled.  Let's just chill out and realize we are all on this planet together...there is no need to make someone's life harder by putting them down.  Peace and love until next time.